System and method for controlling performance of fuel cell stack

ABSTRACT

A system and method of controlling a performance of a fuel cell stack is provided. In particular, the output performance of the fuel cell stack is determined by comparing the difference between an initial voltage and a voltage after a predetermined time lapses with the difference between the initial voltage and a preset minimum voltage.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The present application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 14/476,002, filed Sep. 3, 2014, which claims priority of KoreanPatent Application Number 10-2014-0042776, filed Apr. 10, 2014, theentire contents of which application are incorporated herein for allpurposes by this reference.

BACKGROUND (a) Technical Field

The present invention relates to a system and method of controlling afuel cell stack, and more particularly, to a system and method ofcontrolling a fuel cell stack for recovering performance of the fuelcell stack.

(b) Background Art

Generally, a fuel cell vehicle is a vehicle that is powered by a fuelcell stack in which a plurality of fuel cells are stacked together toprovide an appropriate amount in order to power the vehicle. These fuelcell systems typically include a fuel supplying system supplyinghydrogen, (i.e., fuel or the like), to the fuel cell stack, an airsupplying system supplying oxygen, (i.e., an oxidizing agent requiredfor an electrochemical reaction), a water and heat managing systemcontrolling a temperature of the fuel cell stack, and other componentswell known in the art.

The fuel supply system depressurizes the compressed hydrogen in ahydrogen tank and supplies the hydrogen to a fuel electrode (anode) ofthe fuel cell stack, and an air supply system supplies inhaled externalair to an air electrode (cathode) of the fuel cell stack by operating anair blower.

When hydrogen is supplied to the fuel electrode of the fuel cell stackand oxygen is supplied to the air electrode thereof, hydrogen ions areseparated through a catalytic reaction in the fuel electrode and theseparated hydrogen ions are transferred to the air electrode as anoxidation electrode through electrolytic film. Here, the hydrogen ionsseparated from the fuel electrode, electrons and oxygen react togetherelectro-chemically in the oxidation electrode to produce electricity. Inmore detail, hydrogen is electro-chemically oxidized in the fuelelectrode and oxygen is electro-chemically reduced in the air electrode,electricity and heat are generated through the movements of electronsproduced at that time, and water vapor or water is generated through achemical reaction where hydrogen and oxygen are combined.

Meanwhile, an exhausting device is provided for discharging by-productssuch as water vapor, water and heat, which are produced whileelectricity is generated through the fuel cell stack, and non-reactedhydrogen, oxygen and the like. Gases such as water vapor, hydrogen,oxygen and the like are exhausted to the air through a dischargingpassage.

Here, configurations of an air blower, a hydrogen reflow blower, a waterpump and the like for driving a fuel cell are coupled to a main busterminal to easily turn on the fuel cell, and various relays for easilyblocking and connecting electrical power and a diode to preventreverse-current from flowing to the fuel cell may be connected to themain bus terminal.

Dry air supplied through an air blower is humidified through ahumidifier and then is supplied to the cathode of a fuel cell stack, andthe discharging gas from the cathode is transferred to a humidifierwhile it is humidified through water produced inside the fuel cell stackand may be used when humidifying the dry air to be supplied to thecathode by an air blower.

As is well known by those skilled in the art, fuel cell stacks aresensitive to the operation conditions such as external air temperature,cooling water temperature, current and the like and the state andperformance thereof are determined based on these factors. As such, whena vehicle is continuously driven, especially in bad operationconditions, the performance of the fuel cell stack decreases and as aresult reduces the output of the fuel cell stack. This affects thedurability and deterioration of the fuel cell stack thereby shortening alife-span of the fuel cell stack in the long term.

Meanwhile, the dry out of the fuel cell stack is caused by two factors,one of which is caused at a high temperature output and the other ofwhich is caused at a low output. The dry out at a high temperatureoutput is caused when the heat balance inside the fuel cell stack isbroken and the dry out at a low temperature is caused when the amount ofwater generation is reduced due to failed attempts to control the airsupply and the optimal operating temperature, applying low current, anddriving on free-load. Regardless, when the dry out of the fuel cellstack occurs, the output of the fuel cell stack is decreased and ittakes long time to recover back to a normal output.

Furthermore, when the dry out of the fuel cell stack continues for along time, the fuel cell system may not be able to recover due tounrecoverable performance reduction. Accordingly, the fuel cell stackneeds to be controlled in manner that is able to sense promptly thesituation where the fuel cell stack is in dry out state and operate thefuel cell stack to be recovered rapidly when the fuel cell stack is in adry out state.

Further, even when the concentration of hydrogen is reduced due to itscontamination when hydrogen is supplied as a fuel, the performance ofthe fuel cell stack may decrease. That is, when the output of the fuelcell stack is decreased, separate controls for the fuel cell stack dueto the dry out and the hydrogen contamination are required.

The description provided above as a related art of the present inventionis just for helping in understanding the background of the presentinvention and should not be construed as being included in the relatedart known by those skilled in the art.

SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present invention has been made in an effort to solve theabove-described problems associated with the prior art and the object ofthe present invention is to provide a method of controlling performanceof a fuel cell stack by analyzing the voltage of the fuel cell stack andas a result the performance is recovered in time to prevent damage ordeterioration to the fuel cell.

More specifically, a method of controlling a performance of a fuel cellstack according to an embodiment of the present invention may include astep of determining an output performance of the fuel cell stack bycomparing the difference between an initial voltage and a voltage aftera predetermined time lapses with the difference between the initialvoltage and a preset minimum voltage and recovering the performance ofthe fuel cell based on a determination that the performance isdecreasing.

In particular, the exemplary system may be configured to determine theperformance of the fuel cell stack after a predetermined time haslapsed. As such, the performance of the fuel cell stack is determined tobe lower than a minimum required performance when the difference betweenan initial voltage and a voltage after a predetermined time has lapsedis greater than the difference between the initial voltage and a presetminimum voltage.

The method of controlling the performance of a fuel cell stack of thepresent invention may further include a step of operating the fuel cellstack at an increased pressure by increasing the pressures of hydrogenand air inside the fuel cell stack when a determination is made that theperformance is lowered.

The method of controlling a performance of a fuel cell stack of thepresent invention may further include a first re-determining step ofre-performing the determining step after operating the fuel cell stackat an increasing pressure for a preset time. That is, the analysis iscontinually or reiteratively performed so that the fuel cell stack iscontinuously monitored.

The method of controlling a performance of a fuel cell stack of thepresent invention may further include a step of controlling a purge ofhydrogen from the fuel cell stack by increasing a purge amount ofhydrogen and shortening a purge cycle of hydrogen when the differencebetween an initial voltage and a voltage after a predetermined time haslapsed is greater than the difference between the initial voltage and apreset minimum voltage in the first re-determining step.

The method of controlling a performance of a fuel cell stack of thepresent invention may further include a second re-determining step ofre-performing the determining step after the purge control step.

The method of controlling a performance of a fuel cell stack of thepresent invention may further include a step of introducing air to ahydrogen recirculation line of the fuel cell stack when the differencebetween an initial voltage and a voltage after a predetermined timelapses is greater than the difference between the initial voltage and apreset minimum voltage in the second re-determining step.

The method of controlling a performance of a fuel cell stack of thepresent invention may further include a third re-determining step ofre-performing the determining step after the air introduction step.

The system and method of controlling a performance of a fuel cell stackof the present invention may further include a step of purging ahydrogen storage reservoir in which the hydrogen to be supplied to thefuel cell stack is stored and recharging the hydrogen storage reservoirwith new hydrogen when the difference between an initial voltage and avoltage after a predetermined time has lapsed is greater than thedifference between the initial voltage and a preset minimum voltage inthe third re-determining step.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other features of the present invention will now bedescribed in detail with reference to certain exemplary embodimentsthereof illustrated by the accompanying drawings which are given hereinbelow by way of illustration only, and thus are not limitative of thepresent invention, and wherein:

FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating a method of controlling theperformance of a fuel cell stack according to an exemplary embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 2 is a graph illustrating the variation of the performance of afuel cell stack in accordance with current variation at a normalcondition, a dry condition and a pressurized condition;

FIG. 3 is a graph illustrating the variation of the performance of afuel cell stack in accordance with carbon monoxide (CO) concentrationwithin hydrogen;

FIGS. 4A and 4B are graphs illustrating the variation of the COconcentration at an inlet of hydrogen and the variation of the COconcentration at an inlet of hydrogen recirculation system in accordancewith a purge cycle and a purge amount, respectively;

FIG. 5 is a graph illustrating voltage variations of a fuel cell stackwhen the fuel cell stack is static current-operated at a hydrogenconcentration lower than a normal state; and

FIG. 6 is a graph illustrating variations of current and voltage at apoisoning state of CO and at a state of air introduction to a hydrogenside.

It should be understood that the appended drawings are not necessarilyto scale, presenting a somewhat simplified representation of variouspreferred features of the present invention as disclosed herein,including, for example, specific dimensions, orientations, locations,and shapes will be determined in part by the particular intendedapplication and use environment.

In the figures, reference numbers refer to the same or equivalent partsof the present invention throughout the several figures of the drawing.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The special configurations and functional descriptions are merelyexemplary for describing the embodiments according to the presentinvention, and further the embodiments of the present invention may bereplaced by various modifications, and thus should not be construed aslimiting thereto.

The embodiments according to a concept of the present invention may bechanged variously and have various types and thus the specialembodiments will be illustrated in the drawings and described in thespecification. However, the embodiments according to a concept of thepresent invention are not limited to the specifically disclosed types,and thus should be understood that they include all modifications andequivalents or replacements included within a spirit and a scope of thepresent invention.

Although terms like a first and a second are used to describe variouscomponents, but the components are not limited to these terms. Theseterms are used only to differentiate one component from another one, forexample, the first component can be referred to as the second component,or the second component can be referred to as the first component,without departing from the scope of the present invention.

It also should be understood that when it is stated that one componentis “connected” or “coupled” to another component, even though the onecomponent may be directly connected or coupled to another component, butthere may be other components between them. However, it has to beunderstood that when it is stated that one component is “directlyconnected” or “directly coupled” to another component, there is nointermediate component between them. The terms used for describing arelation among other components, that is, “between”, “right between,“adjacent to” or “directly adjacent to” have to be construed similarly.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particularembodiments only and is not intended to be limiting to the embodiments.As used herein, unless otherwise defined, the singular forms “a,” “an”and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well. Unless thecontext indicates otherwise, it will be further understood that theterms “comprises” and/or “having” when used in this specification,specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations,elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence oraddition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations,elements, components, parts or combination thereof.

All terms including technical or scientific terminology used herein havethe same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in theart to which example embodiments belong. It will be further understoodthat terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, shouldbe interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaningin the context of the relevant art and will not be interpreted in anidealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.

Additionally, it is understood that the below methods are executed by atleast one controller. The term controller refers to a hardware devicethat includes a memory and a processor configured to execute one or moresteps that should be interpreted as its algorithmic structure. Thememory is configured to store algorithmic steps and the processor isspecifically configured to execute said algorithmic steps to perform oneor more processes which are described further below.

Furthermore, the control logic of the present invention may be embodiedas non-transitory computer readable media on a computer readable mediumcontaining executable program instructions executed by a processor,controller or the like. Examples of the computer readable mediumsinclude, but are not limited to, ROM, RAM, compact disc (CD)-ROMs,magnetic tapes, floppy disks, flash drives, smart cards and optical datastorage devices. The computer readable recording medium can also bedistributed in network coupled computer systems so that the computerreadable media is stored and executed in a distributed fashion, e.g., bya telematics server or a Controller Area Network (CAN).

It is understood that the term “vehicle” or “vehicular” or other similarterm as used herein is inclusive of motor vehicles in general such aspassenger automobiles including sports utility vehicles (SUV), buses,trucks, various commercial vehicles, watercraft including a variety ofboats and ships, aircraft, and the like, and includes fuel cell hybridvehicles, electric fuel cell vehicles, plug-in hybrid fuel cell electricvehicles, hydrogen-powered vehicles, and other fuel cell vehicles.

Hereinafter, reference numerals will now be made in detail to variousembodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustratedin the accompanying drawings and described below. In the drawings, thesame reference numerals refer to the same components.

FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating a method of controlling theperformance of a fuel cell stack according to an exemplary embodiment ofthe present invention. A main agent for controlling performances of afuel cell stack may be a controller (not shown) which wholly controlsthe fuel cell stack via a special purpose processor and memoryspecifically configured to control the fuel cell stack as describedherein. In particular, the controller determines the output performanceof the fuel cell stack by comparing the difference between an initialvoltage V1 and a voltage V2 after a predetermined time has lapsed withthe difference between the initial voltage V1 and a preset minimumvoltage V3 S101.

Here, the initial voltage V1 of the fuel cell stack refers to a voltageright after turning on a vehicle (i.e., start up voltage), the presetminimum voltage V3 refers to a standard voltage a fuel cell stack rightbefore it needs replacing, that is, a standard voltage at which it istime to replace the fuel cell stack. The controller determines that theoutput performance of the fuel cell stack is lower than the minimumrequired performance thereof when the difference between the initialvoltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and the voltage V2 thereof after afuel cell vehicle is operated for a predetermined period of time isgreater than the difference between the initial voltage V1 of the fuelcell stack and the preset minimum voltage V3 by comparing the differencebetween the initial voltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and the voltage V2thereof after a fuel cell vehicle is operated for a predetermined periodof time with the difference between the initial voltage V1 of the fuelcell stack and the preset minimum voltage V3 S101. The decrease of theoutput performance may be caused from, for example, a dry out orcontamination of the fuel cell stack.

Here, when the difference between the initial voltage V1 of the fuelcell stack and the voltage V2 thereof after a fuel cell vehicle has beenoperated for a predetermined period of time is greater than thedifference between the initial voltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and thepreset minimum voltage V3, the controller (not shown) is configured tocontrol and does control the operation of the fuel cell stack to operatethe fuel cell stack at an increased pressure by increasing the pressuresof hydrogen and air inside the fuel cell stack S103. As a result, thedry out state of the fuel cell stack may be improved since an absolutehumidity is decreased and a relative humidity is increased when the fuelcell stack is operated at an increased pressure.

FIG. 2 is a graph illustrating the variation of the performance of afuel cell stack depending on current variations at a normal condition, adry condition, and pressurized condition. As shown in FIG. 2, when thefuel cell stack is in the dry out state, the fuel cell stack is to beoperated at an increased pressure thereby to improve the outputperformance thereof.

Meanwhile, after operating the fuel cell stack at an increasing pressurefor a preset time, the controller may determine that the fuel cell stackis contaminated with CO poisoning when the difference between theinitial voltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and the voltage V2 thereofafter a fuel cell vehicle is operated for a predetermined period of timeis still greater than the difference between the initial voltage V1 ofthe fuel cell stack and the preset minimum voltage V3 in spite ofoperating the fuel cell stack at an increased pressure by comparing thedifference between the initial voltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and thevoltage V2 thereof after a fuel cell vehicle is operated for apredetermined period of time with the difference between the initialvoltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and the preset minimum voltage V3S105.

FIG. 3 is a graph illustrating the variation of the performance of afuel cell stack depending on the CO concentration within hydrogen.Referring to FIG. 3, the post-contamination refers to a high COconcentration within hydrogen and the minimum required performancerefers to the output performance of the fuel cell stack corresponding tothe preset minimum voltage V3 wherein it is shown that the outputperformances of the pre-contamination and after operation to recover theperformance are substantially similar and the output performance of thefuel cell stack after contamination is much lower than the outputperformance corresponding to the preset minimum voltage V3.

Regarding to this, FIG. 5 is a graph illustrating the voltage variationof a fuel cell stack when the fuel cell stack is static current-operatedat a hydrogen concentration lower than that at a normal state wherein itis shown that the voltage of a fuel cell is decreased gradually as timelapses when the hydrogen concentration is lower than that at a normalstate due to CO poisoning.

The controller may control the purge cycle and the purge amount ofhydrogen in order to improve the CO contamination S107. In more detail,the controller may decrease the purge cycle of hydrogen and increase thepurge amount of hydrogen. That is, the hydrogen should be purged morefrequently by decreasing the purge cycle of hydrogen, and more hydrogenshould be purged by increasing the purge amount of hydrogen, so as toreduce the CO concentration within hydrogen poisoned with CO.

In this regard, FIGS. 4A and 4B are graphs illustrating theconcentration variation of CO at the inlet of hydrogen and theconcentration variation of CO at the inlet of hydrogen recirculationsystem in accordance with a purge cycle and a purge amount,respectively. As shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B, the CO concentrations at aninlet of hydrogen and an inlet of hydrogen recirculation system aredecreased as time lapses when the purge cycle of hydrogen is reduced toa half and the purge amount of hydrogen is increased to two times.

That is, the controller may reduce the contamination of CO by increasingthe amount of hydrogen that is purged and shortening the purge cycle ofhydrogen (i.e., increasing the frequency) if the output performance ofthe fuel cell stack is still lower than the minimum required performanceupon re-determining the state of the fuel cell stack despite the dry outstate of the fuel cell stack being improved through operating the fuelcell stack at an increased pressure.

After reducing the CO concentration by increasing the amount of hydrogenpurged and shortening the purge cycle of hydrogen, the controller mayintroduce air to a hydrogen recirculation line and induce carbonmonoxide reduction by converting it into carbon dioxide S111 when thedifference between the initial voltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and thevoltage V2 thereof after a fuel cell vehicle operates for apredetermined period of time is greater than the difference between theinitial voltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and the preset minimum voltageV3 in spite of increasing the amount of hydrogen purged and shorteningthe purge cycle by comparing again the difference between the initialvoltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and the voltage V2 thereof after afuel cell vehicle is operated for a predetermined period time with thedifference between the initial voltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and thepreset minimum voltage V3 S109.

In this regard, FIG. 6 is a graph illustrating variations of current andvoltage at the poisoning state of CO and at the state of airintroduction to a hydrogen side. Referring to FIG. 6, it is shown thatthe variations of current and voltage at the state of CO poisoning andafter the introduction of air are different, respectively.

After removing carbon monoxide as a contaminant by introducing air tothe hydrogen recirculation line, the controller may purge all hydrogenstored in the hydrogen storage reservoir of a hydrogen tank and rechargethe reservoir with new hydrogen S115 when the difference between theinitial voltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and the voltage V2 thereofafter a fuel cell vehicle drives for the predetermined period of time isgreater than the difference between the initial voltage V1 of the fuelcell stack and the preset minimum voltage V3 by comparing again thedifference between the initial voltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and thevoltage V2 thereof after a fuel cell vehicle drives for thepredetermined period of time with the difference between the initialvoltage V1 of the fuel cell stack and the preset minimum voltage V3S113.

According to a system and method of controlling a performance of a fuelcell stack according to an embodiment of the present invention, thereasons for decreasing the performance of the fuel cell stack can easilybe determined and the above system and method can control the system toincrease the performance of the fuel cell stack in based on thedetermined reasons for the decrease in performance thereby making itpossible to recover rapidly the performance of the fuel cell stack.

The invention has been described in detail with reference to preferredembodiments thereof. However, it will be appreciated by those skilled inthe art that changes may be made in these embodiments without departingfrom the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which isdefined in the appended claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A controller for controlling a performance of afuel cell stack, the controller comprising: a processor configured toexecute one or more processes; a memory configured to store the one ormore processes executable by the processor, the one or more processesincluding: waiting for a period of time to lapse; once the period oftime has lapsed, determining an output performance of the fuel cellstack by comparing the difference between an initial voltage and avoltage after the period of time has lapsed with the difference betweenthe initial voltage and a preset minimum voltage; determining whetherthe output performance is decreasing; in response to the outputperformance decreasing, determining based on the comparison why theperformance is decreasing; executing processes to increase theperformance of the fuel cell stack; operating the fuel cell stack at anincreased pressure by increasing a hydrogen pressure and an amount ofair inside the fuel cell stack in accordance with the determiningresult; a first re-determining step of re-performing the determiningstep after operating the fuel cell stack at an increased pressure for anadditional period of time; controlling the purge by increasing a purgeamount of hydrogen and shortening a purge cycle of hydrogen when thedifference between an initial voltage and a voltage after the period oftime has lapsed is greater than the difference between the initialvoltage and a preset minimum voltage in the first re-determining step; asecond re-determining step of re-performing the determining step afterthe purge control step; and introducing air to a hydrogen recirculationline of the fuel cell stack when the difference between an initialvoltage and a voltage after the additional period of time has lapsed isgreater than the difference between the initial voltage and a presetminimum voltage in the second re-determining step, wherein carbonmonoxide in the fuel cell stack is converted into carbon dioxide by thestep of introducing air to the hydrogen recirculation line.
 2. Thecontroller for controlling a performance of a fuel cell stack of claim1, wherein the one or more processes further include: determining thatthe performance of the fuel cell stack after the period of time haslapsed is lower than a minimum required performance when the differencebetween an initial voltage and a voltage after the period of time haslapsed is greater than the difference between the initial voltage and apreset minimum voltage.
 3. The controller for controlling a performanceof a fuel cell stack of claim 1, wherein the one or more processesfurther include: a third re-determining step of re-performing thedetermining step after the air introduction step.
 4. The controller forcontrolling a performance of a fuel cell stack of claim 3, wherein theone or more processes further include: purging a hydrogen storagereservoir in which the hydrogen to be supplied to the fuel cell stack isstored and recharging the hydrogen storage reservoir with new hydrogenwhen the difference between an initial voltage and a voltage after theperiod of time has lapsed is greater than the difference between theinitial voltage and a preset minimum voltage in the third re-determiningstep.